


No One Knew

by ehhhchimatsu



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: I cried while writing this, M/M, au where respawn isn't a thing, please have some tissues nearby if you cry over fics, sad fic, speeding bullet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehhhchimatsu/pseuds/ehhhchimatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sniper is left to mourn for the only thing he ever cared about. Nobody knew that that young man was his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Knew

No one knew how close we had been. 

When the first shovelful of dirt was thrown on top of the lowered casket, when all of his brothers and his mother - oh, his mother, makeup-stained tears running down her worn face - were standing together, one solid unit with a piece missing, when the hole was finally completely covered... no one had known. No one would ever know. 

I first met the tyke three years ago, during the Gravel Wars. He was a replacement Scout - the best had come, risen, and fallen, leaving this young kid to fill his shoes. 

He filled them plenty, and, despite his cocky nature, I'd liked him. A lot. It didn't come instantaneously, but I grew to be fond of him, though at the time I would never outwardly say so. He was an annoying little bugger and I didn't want to inflate his ego to be the size of my home country. 

In the year after I met him, I got to know him. I learned that he had reasons to be cocky - if he weren't, his brothers back home in Boston would've pummeled his self esteem into the dust. They had, for a while, apparently. Until he discovered baseball and how it came oh so naturally to him. Then, after realizing his potential, he stopped listening to others' negative opinions. They didn't matter. He knew he was the best.

I wouldn't disagree with that, personally. 

Through all of our talks, of course women would be a subject that would come up. 

He bragged, of course. Tons of ladies swooning over his scrawny self, no, of course he wasn't a virgin, he got lucky more than I could have ever dreamed.

Though I knew it was an exaggeration, I tried to conceal my feelings. Of course he liked women. He was a straight-edge guy and an athlete. 

Did I have a wife, he had asked. I had about laughed out loud. No, I had replied with a chuckle, didn't really ever want to get married to any sheila. I was fine being alone. I had my van and my gun and that was all I ever needed. 

I know now that he had seen through that last little white lie. He was good at reading people, even if he pretended to be oblivious. He was a smarter little runt than I ever gave him credit for. 

After that conversation, I had unconsciously avoided him, I realized later. He noticed immediately, though. 

Snipes this, Snipes that, are you alright, he would ask.

Mick, I had told him in the middle of a sentence. My name is Mick.

I remember the way his face kind of went blank in thought before a wide grin appeared. Scotty, he had said. 

Things went on normally after that, for a while. I didn't avoid him as much. Until it hit me like a shit brick house that I had grown too attached to this boy. 

I was completely torn. Of course I knew what was morally right - he was half my age and straight, for Pete's sake. There was a Buckley's chance in hell that I'd ever get intimate in any fashion with him. I was a disease. If he found out, I'd be a goner.

Several days later, I found out that I was capable of being wrong.

I mean, it took almost dying in his arms for him to say that he cared for me more than mates, but looking back on it, I was really glad it happened, save for the fact that I have a few dozen shrapnel scars all over my body due to being in an explosion blast radius. 

Definitely worth it. 

So there, laying bloody in his arms after he'd seen the sticky bombs being shot right into my lookout and rushed to the scene, he said it.

He had cried and said those three simple words that combined into something that meant the world. 

"I love you, Mick."

He bandaged me with his own, shaky hands until he could get me some actual help, all the while sobbing and assuring me I'd be okay while I remained dazed and silent.

If I hadn't have had been so shocked to hear him, see him, in what I thought were my final moments, if I hadn't have had pieces of shrapnel lodged in my throat, making it hard to breathe, I think I would have told him I loved him, too. That I had for a while. That I couldn't stand to be away from him for more than a few hours because he was my life.

My life was taken from me. 

It's been a full year since his death, to the day. I visited his grave earlier, after his mother and brothers left. I never got to formally meet them, we were both afraid of them shunning us, of hating us for our love. 

I'm the only person alive who knew how close we had been.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.


End file.
